Electrical outlet floor boxes for placement within a concrete floor are well known in the industry for providing convenient access to power and/or data communications. Typical outlet floor boxes for such an application are placed beneath the floor and within the poured material and are configured to receive an electrical receptacle. FIG. 1 illustrates one such known outlet floor box for installation underneath a floor. After a floor box such as the one shown in FIG. 1 is installed and the flooring material, such as concrete, is poured around the box, the floor box is cut flush with the top of the flooring material and an electrical component, such as an electrical power receptacle and/or a communication receptacle, is installed within the box.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,466,886 to Lengyel et al. and assigned to Hubbell Incorporated discloses an electrical outlet box assembly for power and communication wires. As disclosed in Lengyel, an electrical box assembly includes a housing such as the one shown in FIG. 1, a wiring enclosure releasably coupled within the housing for separating and insulating power and communication wires from each other, a receptacle insulator member coupled to the wiring enclosure for insulating an electrical receptacle and a receptacle mounting member for releasably mounting the receptacle thereto. The receptacle is attached to the mounting member and four retaining clips are attached to the receptacle mounting member and placed within the top of channels to couple the receptacle mounting member with receptacle attached to the housing. Once installed, the receptacle is flush with the top of the floor surface.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,783,774 to Bowman et al. discloses a non-metallic floor box similar to the one shown in FIG. 1 but having a plurality of vertically aligned indexing teeth formed in the interior of the housing side wall. An adapter ring is sized for insertion into the housing and a plurality of flanges extending from the periphery of the adapter ring are positioned to reciprocally mate with the sets of teeth inside the housing wall. An electrical receptacle is attached to the top of the adapter ring and adapter ring is installed within the housing such that the receptacle is flush with the top of the flooring material.
One disadvantage with respect to the related art floor boxes, including those described above, is that due to manufacturing practices common in the industry, the interior sidewalls of floor boxes such the one depicted in FIG. 1 are tapered. More particularly, the floor boxes are typically made of a non-metallic material, such as plastic, and are formed into their respective shapes on a molding machine. In order to remove the molded floor box from the machine, the upper tube portion of the box is tapered, that is, it is wider at the top of the box and gets narrower down closer to the cavity portion of the box where the wiring typically enters. The mechanisms used to attach the receptacles to the box housing in related art devices are insufficient to accommodate for this taper. More specifically, oftentimes due to the amount of the tube portion that is cut from the top of the floor box, the portion of the tube to which the receptacle must be attached is too narrow to adequately accommodate the attachment mechanism provided to attach the receptacle to the housing.
There remains a need, therefore, for an electrical outlet floor box having an electrical receptacle attachment mechanism that accommodates for this taper and that addresses other problems attendant with conventional outlet box fixtures.